My biggest disappointment in Bush: Lack of RB targets

Topic

Most of Bush’s failings I believe are chalked up to Chris Petersen’s offense. However, the one thing I think is a Bush problem is lack of RB targets. With Sark in 2011 the wheel route/fade to Chris Polk was money. UW also used it to Dwash in 2014/2015 and used it with Gaskin although Browning was hit and miss on that.

With Eason? In spring/fall he checked it down a lot. To the point where me and Chest and several others openly predicted McGrew would be top 3 on the team in pass receptions.

Last season Gaskin had 21 catches, Salvon as a backup had 21 catches and McGrew had 6 for 110.

This year: Salvon only had 14-58, McGrew 7-13, Newton 2-16.

As Kodak said McGrew is a perfect NE type of 3rd down RB. McGrew had the only decent offensive play in that dreadful 2018 Cal game on a wheel route. Had a clutch 4th and 3 out route catch at Oregon on what should have been the game winning drive.

In fact McGrew despite averaging 6.5 YPC was basically eliminated from the rotation. His final catch was against Arizona and his last carry was the Utah where he carried just one time for 6 yards.

The misuse of the backs I think is a Bush problem that isn’t something that was happening with Jonathan Smith as OC even.

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How much of that is Bush vs Eason not making those check down throws?

You don’t want to overplay the check down hand but at the same time finding opportunistic mismatches for RBs as well as finding nominal gains to stay on schedule for down/distance in the passing game is part of running a high end offense.

I mean after a breakout 100 yard game by McGew at Arizona(granted he was hurt and missed Oregon game) he saw a grand total of one carry rest of the season. Which was against Utah and never touched the ball again against Oregon State, Colorado and the Cougs(had a nice 37 yard return vs Cougs).

I don’t see the Huskies having any designed screens to back. In 2017 we used to use that WR screen to Salvon which was quite successful vs Penn State in picking up two first downs(nearly scored a TD on one).

I know Bush has other problems but I chalk that up to Chris Petersen’s offense. However, the lack of RB targets and playing time for McGrew(that’s also on moobs) is a head scratcher.

Coming from ATL which featured the RB quite a bit in the passing game in 2016 I figured Bush was going to feature the back quite a bit.

Some things that don’t seemingly make sense on the surface have reasons behind them

Nothing about this season felt right, but it started to make much more sense with Pete stepping aside.

I suspect more will make sense in the coming weeks.

Tequilla wrote:

Some things that don’t seemingly make sense on the surface have reasons behind them

Nothing about this season felt right, but it started to make much more sense with Pete stepping aside.

I suspect more will make sense in the coming weeks.

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I don’t know how much we’ll actually find out publicly. Doubt Lake throws Pete under the bus but Pete’s presser basically confirmed what a lot of us were saying all year long.

Think the use of RB’s and in particular McGrew was puzzling though.

Good thread for Sub K to chime in on. Airwolf too since he’s an expert on offense.

Not having Cam Davis as the RB2 in the Oregon game when he can play up to 4 games and retain RS was also criminal.

Our coaches have done a terrible job at utilizing this new RS rule on offense. On defense they mastered it but offense it was horrible. Just like not playing Osborne/Spiker at all in 2018 made no sense either.